


Home isn't necessarily a place

by moonlight_petal



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Gen, Hurt!Jack, Hurt!Mac, Jack collects strays, Jack is a bit slow, Jack just wants Mac to be happy, Mac wants the same thing for Jack, Men Talking About Feelings, Oblivious!Jack, Protective Jack, Team as Family, in a way at least, off-screen MacGyvering, set during Season 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 03:23:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16987188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight_petal/pseuds/moonlight_petal
Summary: When Jack has a night off he makes a new friend and gets more than he bargained for.Alternatively: Jack Dalton hates drug cartel cases.





	Home isn't necessarily a place

**Author's Note:**

> I might have a lot to say here but I'll try to keep it short for those who read these notes:  
> It's been a looooong time since I posted anything on here, so I'm pretty nervous and insecure but at the same time it felt so amazing to finally get back into the zone. This basically wrote itself after I had the initial idea. But yeah, nervous nonetheless. So please be nice.
> 
> Also, English isn't my first language to please excuse grammar and punctuation mistakes (especially those because I never got the hang of that in all the years.) If there are really major issues please let me know and I'll try to fix it.
> 
> And lastly, I stumbled into this fandom just recently. I saw only a handful of episodes on TV over time and only now really started watching the series for real. So this story is set during season 01 because I had just finished watching that when I started writing and am currently watching season 02. I hope I'm not too far off when it comes to characterisation and I have never been to the US before and am basically British English schooled, so yeah Bozer and Jack were a bit tough for me.
> 
> (At this point, big thanks to my best friend, kind of my Mac/Jack/Bozer all rolled into one awesome person, who got me to watch MacGyver!)
> 
> Okay, shutting up now, on to the story! Hope you enjoy!

Home isn't necessarily a place

 

"Well now, you ain't a regular face around here..."

 

That was the first thing she heard in a lilting southern accent and she just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. The person behind the voice wasn't wrong though, she arrived back in LA only a week before after all and hadn't been out much since then. In fact it was only due to some missing stuff that she halted her work and that led her to this bar to wind down and have a drink.

"So? And you are, to be in a position to judge that?" She turned to look the guy in the eyes directly and arched an eyebrow.

 

He chuckled softly and raised his beer bottle in a cheer.

"Touché..." he sat down next to her, facing the room, trailing his gaze over the crowd. "Actually no... lucky guess really... I'm having a bit of an irregular work schedule, makes it hard to be a regular at anything... but then, you realise we're in LA and well... don't take that the wrong way but you don't exactly fit the crowd around here..." he pointedly looked her up and down to give her a hint what he meant. "No offence because I dig your shirt..."

 

She looked a bit annoyed at first, followed his look anyway and promptly started to laugh. She hadn't thought much of it, she only went out to get a drink and then go back home, so she went just the way she had been which was in somewhat baggy jeans that were cut off just above her knees and a faded black and oversized AC/DC shirt that showed a bit of her shoulder and collar bone and was tied to one side to fit it a bit better around her curves. To her endless embarrassement there were faded paint stains that hadn't washed out completely and more recent black spots from the work she was doing at the moment. She stopped mid-laugh and blinked, looking at the guy.

"Oh dear, please tell me I don't have dirt on my face, that would so be me..." that said she tried to look in the slightly warped mirrored wall behind the bar while pulling her hair out of her face.

 

"Nah, don't worry about it, your face is just fine..." he winked at her. That gesture got him an unimpressed look in return though.

"Gee thanks..." she replied but let her face and hair be, she hadn't been able to see anything in the mirror and for some reason she trusted the guy not to lie to her in that case. "Alright... I do see what you mean though and it explains the somewhat weird look the bartender gave me when I came in... thing is, I've been working basically nonstop for the past three days and only stopped because I hadn't enough material to continue... so I came to get a drink instead -hence the outfit..."

 

"Three days huh? In that case congratulations, I've pulled enough long shifts to know that I wouldn't look as good as you at this point..."

That comment made her snort silently.

"Well to be fair I do sleep... sometimes... for a bit... when I'm working time isn't really of any importants to me..."

"Geez not another one... you sound just like my best friend and I bet 'when time isn't of any importants' that you have to be reminded to eat as well? Kids these days..." he sighed and shook his head a bit. "Sorry, not really my business... so what *do* you do?"

 

She was intrigued by his sudden worried rant, seems like that friend of his was even worse than her and was cause of at least some of the grey hairs the guy had. "If it's any consolation I might not abide to a strict meal schedule but I do eat when I get hungry... can't do my job well when my hands are shaking... to answer your question, I build stuff out of other stuff... junk I find lying around..." she stopped, a bit taken aback by the sudden turn of the guy's head and his intense gaze upon her. "Err... well that's the best I can describe it anyway... I'm kind of... an artist if you will..." she continued a little insecure but also relieved as the intense look morphed into something more relaxed and understanding again.

 

"Ah... an artist? A proper one? Like 'Paint a circle on canvas and see the meaning of life in it and although nobody else understands it they still pay the big bucks for it' artist? Because the last person I heard calling himself an artist turned out to be a bit of a psycho and not the fun kind..." he looked at her searchingly. There was something about the way he looked at her and also the crowd around them that made her wonder if he was seeing the same things she saw.

 

"Yes, a proper artist if you really can call it that since artistry really is kind of subjective... so what defines  a 'proper artist' might be up for debate but yeah paint, wood, metal, clay... whatever material, you name it, I probably worked with at some point or other..." to prove her point she pulled her mobile from the backpocket of her shorts and quickly swiped through her gallery until she found what she was looking for, showing it to the guy, absentmindedly thinking that she probably should ask for a name soon since calling him 'the guy' in her head all the time was getting a bit weird.

 

She showed him a handful of pictures watching his face brighten in surprise.

"Hey, that's actually pretty cool, you see that's art I actually can get behind... wait a minute... is that the Millenium Falcon?"

She giggled softly.

"It is, that was a fun one to do, it was a commission for some sort of convention in May last year, you know 'May the fourth' be with you and all that."

He gave her back her phone and grinned.

"Darling, you just restored my opinion about artists, this is seriously cool stuff!" He looked at her again. "Building such cool things out of stuff other people throw away... you should meet my best friend I bet you would get along amazingly... he does things like that too just more... hands on, useful stuff and less art... you would like him I think, not that I have met anyone before who didn't like him if I'm being honest..."

"He certainly sounds like an interesting guy... I give you that... and what do you do that warrants an irregular work schedule, if you don't mind me asking?" she took a sip from her drink and turned a bit more to him, taking in the guy more closely. He was good looking, obviously well built and fit, short hair, sexy stubble and impressive hazel eyes. She couldn't pretend even to herself that she didn't like what she saw.

 

"Security... I'm working for a local think tank with quite a lot of brilliant minds with even more brilliant ideas and it's my job to keep them safe."

He saw her eyebrows shift into a skeptical expression. "No really, I'm pretty much a bodyguard when my friends and team are out and about having good ideas... you don't believe me, do you?" he rubbed a hand over his face.

 

"No, no I believe you, I can totally see the security/bodyguard part, would explain the irregular work schedule, the part I'm fuzzy about is why a think tank would need bodyguards but then I have no idea about things like that and it's none of my business anyway, so I'll accept it... for now..." she smirked slightly and gave him a cheer with her glass. "Well now that you know what I do and I kind of know what you do... I'm Angel by the way, Angel Diaz."

 

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow skeptically.

"Angel?" he said slowly. "No offence but that does sound kind of fake to me..."

"None taken..." she smirked. "Because it is, but it's the name everybody knows me by and that's on my art as well..."

 

"A pseudonym, yeah... that makes sense... well Miss Diaz, my name is Dalton, Jack Dalton." he winked at her the second time that night and clinked his bottle against her glass.

She chuckled.

"Not exactly the James Bond type, Jack, but it is nice to meet you! Cheers!"

 

~*~

 

"... yeah I have seen quite a bit of the world, being in the Army will do that to you but LA is my home, it's where my friends and family is, nothing can top that..." Angel looked at him with interest shining in her eyes as he told her this and that about all the places he had been to. That a good portion of those he had visited a lot later on missions with the CIA and Phoenix instead of the Army she didn't have to know.

 

"That's true I guess and I understand what you're saying about home although that one's a bit different for me. I'm around a lot as well doing my stuff... the beauty of being an artist, no fixed base, I can do that literally anywhere. I stay in the places I like or leave quickly if it doesn't feel right, some places just disturb my mojo..." she grinned. "I have friends and acquaintances all over the world but not the kind of close bond that would keep me somewhere. My parents... well I never knew them. From the little bit I was told when I was old enough to understand, they were in quite a difficult place and seriously not able to support a child... I suppose they felt guilty about that or embarrassed or something since they chose to cut all contact as well as every possibility for future contact.... I grew up in the system and various foster families... don't get me wrong I haven't had bad experiences with them or anything traumatic like the stuff you see on the news sometimes but it just never stuck... I guess it explains why I don't have deep seated roots like other people. So far home was where I was comfortable and inspired. Funny enough despite growing up in the states and basically moving all over the place here and the rest of the world, it is my first time here in LA. You, Jack, actually might be the first person I really took the time to talk to aside from my landlord and the guy at the junkyard..." she huffed softly. "God, why am I telling you all this, you didn't ask for my sob story here, sorry about that..."

 

Jack had listened closely to what she had told him, for some reason he felt a bit sad for her, every kid should at least be able to get to know their parents or at the very least have the opportunity to talk to someone who knew about them, like Mac did for Annabelle. With a soft smile he shook his head at her last words.

"Nah, it's fine, that might just have been the Dalton charme at work and I'm honored that you felt comfortable enough to talk to this old man here although we don't really know one another. In the capacity of your offical first friend outside your work and living situation, I welcome you in sunny Los Angeles, maybe you finally came home now." Jack softly patted her on the shoulder.

 

She smiled brightly.

"Thanks Jack, it's appreciated... although I'm not entirely sure about the so called 'Dalton charme' but I do feel kind of safe with you, so I give you that one." She drained her glass and blinked a bit.

"Speaking of safe, it's getting late, you want a lift home?" Jack asked after a moment of silence, almost physically feeling the waves of tiredness coming from the woman next to him.

 

"Thanks for the offer but I'm good, really... I don't live far, just two or three blocks down the road, makes no sense getting into a car for that..."

"Okay, I see the logic in that, then let me walk you home at least. No funny business, I promise." he added when she looked at him with a questioning look. "It's just, you're new in town and pretty obviously tired and I'm a gentleman at heart. It's not exactly safest for a woman alone at night and I would feel better if I knew you got home alright, call me old-fashioned all you want."

Angel smiled more relaxed again.

"Alright if you put it like that and it means so much to you -although for the record, I can take care of myself- you can walk me home."

"Good, thank you. And for the record as well, I don't doubt that you can handle yourself, you don't travel all over the globe alone without being able to. I know that but that's what friends are for and it's my job to boot." Jack gave the bartender a sign and paid for both their drinks, waving off Angel's attempt at paying for herself with a smile.

She shook her head with a small 'thanks' on her lips and led the way outside and down the road then.

 

They walked the short distance to her place in comfortable silence until she stopped with a soft sigh.

"That's me, thanks for the nice evening and for being my personal bodyguard, Jack, it's been a pleasure to meet you."

Jack look up at the front of the place.

"So here's where the magic happens..." he said softly, not exactly talking to her. He made a mental note of the location and the surroundings to have Riley check out the neighborhood for him. He shook himself and looked at the younger woman in front of him.

"The pleasure was all mine, Angel, thank you."

 

She had heard his whisper and smiled, not exactly ready to say goodnight to her new friend anyway.

"You want to come in and have a look at my current work? It's not finished yet and I already have ideas for another one but well..."

The older man grinned.

"You know, I'd love to but I have to politely decline that offer. You are dead on your feet, kid and don't even try to deny it, I know all the signs." He took a card from his wallet, one of the cover story ones every Phoenix Foundation operative had for missions and civilian life alike and held it out to her. "Tell you what, on the off chance that you get up tomorrow morning when the Dalton charme has worn off and you still want to show it to me or just want to hang out for a drink again, give me a call."

 

Angel took the card with curiousity, holding it up to read it in the dim lighting.

"Jack Dalton, Head of security, Phoenix Foundation... that has a nice ring to it and it sounds like a lot more work than just being a bodyguard, Jack, I think you've been downplaying your position here. Anyway, thank you, I will call you then." she slid the card in her back pocket as a reminder to save the number in her phone later on.

"We'll see about that, kid. In case I don't answer which might happen with work and all, just leave me a message and I promise I call back as soon as I can. That being said, off you go, good night Angel.

She nodded, contemplating commenting on the 'kid' part but let it go in the end.

"Thank you, good night Jack. Be safe."

 

Jack watched her go and close the door behind herself with a soft frown on his face, wondering what she had meant. _You are starting to get paranoid, Dalton._ he scolded himself and made his way back to his car, smiling about how his evening had played out a lot different than planned and also happy that Matty hadn't distrubed his evening off with an emergency mission.

 

~*~

 

>It just occurred to me, it's not entirely fair that you get to know where I live and that I got home safe but I don't know either of those points about you.

 

>Even guys working in security can get mugged at night, you know?

 

>What I actually mean is, did you get home safe?

 

>Sorry, I'm not usually that rambly via text, my brain is still in sleep mode I think.

 

>It's Angel btw, in case you were wondering.

 

>Am I annyoing you yet?

 

>Sorry, shutting up now...

 

>One last thing: good morning!

 

 

 

Jack couldn't help but chuckle when he turned his phone on in the morning while getting ready for work to this barrage of text messages. The time stamp told him that they were sent around half past four in the morning, which was roughly five hours after he accompanied Angel home.

 

 

_> Kid, you should still be in bed, less than five hours is far from enough sleep for how tired you were last night._

_And I did get home safe just fine, thanks for asking. And while it's true that even guys working in security can get mugged at night, those guys don't go by the name of Jack Dalton._

_Also not annoying me and good morning to you too. I'm off to work though, so don't wait for another reply anytime soon. Jack_

 

 

The agent wondered how he managed to always find these kids. First Mac, then Riley and then Bozer... and now apparently Angel. All very independent and self-sufficient but in comparison to him kids all the same who need someone to have their back. Well that was right up in his job description and he would do it as long as they let him.

 

~*~

 

He was in a good mood when he entered the war room which wasn't out of the norm for him really, the occasions he was already in a bad mood when he came in were few and far between. He was kind of surprised to only find Riley there, hunching over her laptop as always.

"Good morning Riley, the others not in yet?"

 

The Hacker looked up from her screen.

"Morning Jack. They are, Mac is downstairs in the lab with Bozer working on their AI. Matty just left to a surprise meeting, I see a mission in our future if you ask me but until she's back we are stuck here. She said to remind you of a bunch of reports that needed to be written like yesterday?" Riley smirked at the older man.

 

"Aw man, really, that's what I get up in the morning for? Yeah well, we'll see about that... but hey, Ri, seeing that we have to wait for a bit, would you mind doing me a small favour? Off the record and all?"

 

Riley looked up suspiciously, trying to find in Jack's eyes what's up with her friend.

"Yeah..." she said hesitantly. "What is it? Should I be concerned? You didn't crash you laptop while watching porn or something because let me tell you, you are on your own then..." she said.

"Yeah no, thanks for the vote of confidence here, like I need to watch porn or something..." he started but stopped himself. "You know what, forget about it, not getting into this argument with you now. No, could you run a quick check on the neighbourhood of this address?" He handed her a small piece of paper.

"Okay? Anything in particular I should look out for?"  she asked already typing quickly. If she thought Jack's request was weird, she didn't show it and Jack was kind of proud since -although Riley's poker face always had been good- now it was close to perfect. That didn't mean that he wouldn't have liked to know what she was thinking.

"Not really, just the general stuff, crime rate around the place, background of the people living there." The Hacker nodded, scrolling through information at a speed that Jack didn't even try to follow.

 

"Right... well, the general location has a bit of a history of drug related cases but they date a few years back, nothing major recently. As far as I can see there are quite a few of the apartment spaces empty and those that are occupied are owned by either old people who seem to have lived there all their life, no criminal record there and a few younger people, some work in the shops around and some are students. Nothing major on record in those cases either, the worst of it are a couple of shop lifting incidences, speeding tickets and in one case a disturbance and a bit of property damage while under the influence. The most suspicious would probably be a new resident who moved in just a couple of days ago, she has quite the list of past residences, seems like she never stayed long in one place, no significant criminal record though, medical record is a bit more extensive... that's about it..." Riley looked up. "What's that about, Jack, you thinking about moving? Because despite the neighbourhood, wouldn't that be downgrading your living situation? You're not in trouble or anything, right?"

 

"Geez, Ri, calm down, I'm perfectly fine and not remotely interested in moving out of my home, thank you very much. No trouble at all, well not more than normal anyway. Nah, went out for a drink last night and met this girl, the new resident, I guess she's around your and Mac's age give or take a year or two, you have the record open you'll know better..." Riley looked unimpressed and groaned a bit. She was about to make a snide remark when Jack interrupted her.

"Don't say anything, Ri, it's not like that. We just talked a bit, it was nice. And as you said yourself she just moved here and doesn't know anyone except her landlord and the guy from the junkyard according to her, well and me now. I walked her home, made sure she got there alright." Jack let his head fall back and groaned. "I guess I just wanted to know if the place is alright since from what she told me, she's almost as bad as Mac in terms of self-preservation, meaning she was dead on her feet and wouldn't have stood a chance against even the most incapable attacker last night..."

 

While Jack had talked, Riley had checked the record and he had been pretty spot on with the age of this woman. A bit more interested now she looked a bit more closely in her background, turned her eyes on Jack only when he stopped talking. She grinned.

When there was no response Jack looked up.

"What?"

"You did it again..."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"You found another stray, Jack..." Riley chuckled. "Although to be fair, I guess that's the first one you actually found, the rest of us more or less found you..."

Jack just blinked for a moment and then let his head fall back again.

"Aw hell..." he said despite having thought pretty much the same already.

 

"Well if it's any consolation, it seems like she isn't in immediate danger in her new surroundings and from what I can gather in her medical record, mostly a danger to herself." she turned her laptop a bit so Jack could look if he wanted to. He only briefly looked at the words and pictures, nothing too out of the ordinary although he did find one particular period where she went to the ER basically three times in short succession for broken bones and sprains rather suspicious and made a mental note to try and find out more about that if he had the chance. But a moment later he shook his head. "No, I shouldn't be reading this, it's enough to know that she should be mostly safe for now, I'll find out the rest sooner or later anyway."

 

"Wow, Jack Dalton, heeding someone's personal privacy, I'm impressed." Riley teased.

"Oh shut it..."

 

"My sentiment exactly, Jack! New mission!" interupted Matty their conversation while entering the war room, shortly followed by Mac and Bozer. They all were professionals and knew how to flip the switch on there private life to fully concentrate on the mission at hand.

 

~*~

 

The mission -as it was bound to- went south rather quickly and spectacularly, because let's face it, their assignments never worked out the way they planned. And to make matters worse they returned with a whole lot more questions than answers which most likely were on them to find the answers to as well in future missions. Damn drug cartel missions, they always were the worst. Jack didn't like it. Not at all, especially not when he woke up in medical, stiff, bruised beyond belief, with a pretty spectacular black eye and his arm in a sling.

 

"There he is..." Mac said softly from his side, when he opened his eyes. Jack turned to him and took careful stock of the state his friend was in. To his immense satisfaction he couldn't detect any obvious harm.

"You're alright... how're the others?"

"Perfectly fine, Jack, as always, you managed to get us all home safe and sound... well all except yourself but that's basically business as usual as well." a smile played around the younger man's lips.

"Well that's my job, isn't it? Watching your back. How long was I out?"

"Not that long, a couple of hours. You passed out on the way here, from the pain in your arm I supposed and they kept you under for a bit longer while they got the facture straightened out." Mac explained. Jack winced as he tried to sit up in his bed.

"But they did fix it, right? I can go home now?" the older agent asked, a desperate edge to his voice that MacGyver graciously ignored. Jack hated being in medical just as much as he did.

"You can, but..." he held up his hand when Jack tried to leave the bed already. "...but not just yet, you have to wait a little bit for the doc, she wanted to give you a couple instructions on injury care but then I'll take you home yes, because no, you can't drive yourself with that arm and being on the good stuff."

 

Jack grumbled a bit but decided that this was a battle not worth fighting and leaned back against the mattress. At least he got to go home.

"Fine, but I don't like this, just for the record and I doubt she can tell me anything new in regards to injury care, it's not like this is my first rodeo."

"Protocol, Jack, I doubt there is anything new as well, but you have to be patient." He looked at his friend speculatively. "Why don't we make use of the wait and you tell about 'Angel'?"

 

Jack turned his head so quickly that he had to close his eyes for a moment to fight down the dizziness.

"What?"

Mac laughed softly.

"Don't worry, I was just wondering, I've been sitting here a while and they called and texted a couple of times. I didn't mean to snoop or read your text but from the little bit I saw, it sounded a bit worried. Anything I should know? Because frankly, my friend, I'm a little hurt, I got the impression that Riley knew something more but refused to tell me."

 

"Aw crap, Mac, buddy, I'm sorry, no need to be hurt, I didn't mean to keep that a secret or anything, on the contrary actually but the mission kind of distracted me. Angel is a woman I met... wait what day is it?"

Mac frowned.

"Sunday?"

"Damn, no wonder... well I met her a couple of days ago at a bar, we got talking and I accompanied her home. She's an artist and makes these really cool things out of junk and other stuff... she showed me a couple of pictures and she did a really cool model of the Millenium Falcon last year. She wanted to show me what she's currently working on but well, she's a lot like you in more than one sense so we took a raincheck on that one. Actually I wanted to introduce you two, I'm pretty sure you would get along well. We messaged a bit the morning after and then there was work... well she must think I'm ignoring her by now."

 

Mac listened to his friend but mostly he watched the various expressions on his face. It was a testament that he was on the good stuff because although they generally had no secrets from each other, neither of them usually was that talkative from the get go. Normally a lot more prying was involved in a confession like that. The younger agent understood quickly that Jack liked that woman but wasn't entirely sure to what extend.

 

"Okay, in that case you better let her know that you are not in fact ignoring her but were a bit tied up at work... she doesn't exactly need to know just how true that statement was at one point..." Mac teased and gave Jack his phone.

 

~*~

 

>(Thursday, 10:34am) No time like now, I can't stay in bed when inspiration strikes, Jack, just not possible.

>(Thursday, 10:37am) But good to know in that case, have fun at work. Be safe!

 

>(Friday, 6:19pm) No answer? I guess you're stuck at work, irregular schedule and all... just wondering if you want to grab a drink or something? I mean, you did offer...

 

>(Saturday, 1:21am, Voicemessage) Uh.. hey Jack? It's alright if you don't want to grab another drink, it's fine... but... hey, you know where I live so if you're still interested in my current work, just drop by... you can bring your friend too if you want, I don't mind... maybe... just give me a quick warning before to make sure I'm actually home and not out scavenging for material and stuff... bye...

 

>(Saturday, 4:00pm) Feeling a little ignored here, what happened to being a gentleman?

 

>(Sunday, 8:03am) Not going to lie I don't know if I'm more pissed or more worried at the moment...

 

>(Sunday, 5:38pm, Voicemessage) Jack... damn, why am I doing this again? Anyway, fine, I guess you win and I take the hint to leave you alone, just... do me a favour? Just give me a quick message that you are alright, for some reason being worried won out over being pissed and... yeah I just want to know you are alright and then I'm out of your hair... uh bye...

 

~*~

 

"Seems like you left an impression..." Mac offered after listening to the voicemessages, when Jack finished and let his head drop back in the pillows.

"I suppose it's not just that exactly..." Jack sighed. "She's new in town, doesn't know anyone else really... bad luck she had to meet me of all people..."

"Hey now, you're awesome, just bad timing with this stupid mission and you do have some pretty convincing excuses for not getting in touch earlier. But now, I suggest you put her out of her misery and yourself as well and let her know that you're fine. Ask her if she's home tomorrow and we'll go over and look at her work since you apparently wanted me to see it anyway and introduce us... In the meantime I'll go and see if I can find the good doctor so that we can go home... not going to lie, by now even I miss my own bed!" Mac said and went to the door.

 

Jack looked at him with a lopsided smile.

"Hey Mac? Thanks..."

 

There was no reply but Jack didn't need one to know that the sentiment was appreciated.

He took his phone back up and contemplated calling Angel but he supposed writing would be the better option for now, being on the good stuff -as Mac called it- made him doubt his brain-mouth-filter a little. Better to type and think it over again before sending.

 

 

_> Hey Angel, darling, I'm so incredibly sorry I couldn't get back to you before now, I understand you are angry and I'm sorry to make you worry. I'm fine, well mostly fine. Had a few interesting days at work but I'm home again now..._

_> Talked to my friend though, we would love to come by and look at your work. Would tomorrow around noon work for you? I'll explain more then, promise._

_> Sorry again!_

 

 

Jack hadn't even time to drop his head back in the pillows before the answers came in.

 

 

>Thank fuck you're still alive!

 

>And I hope you have a good excuse, I swear I only know you a couple of hours really but you already are responsible for a few new wrinkles! Not cool, Dalton, so not cool!

 

>Also completely fine, come over whenever you want... I was out collecting stuff almost all day today, so I'll be home all day tomorrow working. If I don't answer the door bell, just come around the back, that's where I work.

 

 

Jack just sent out the affirmative for their visit the next day when Mac and the good Doctor Larson came in.

"Doc, what a pleasure to see you again..." he grinned.

 

~*~

 

"Jack would you stop fidgeting? If I didn't know better I'd think you are nervous." Mac teased his older friend. They were on their way to Jack's mysterious new friend and the younger man couldn't deny that he was curious. Jack was a good man, friendly and likable but usually it took a bit more than one good conversation and a drink to crack his inner shell and make him care like that. There had to be something about this woman. He didn't know any more than the night before since Riley remained silent on the matter and Jack hadn't really been conscious enough until right before they left.

 

"God no, I'm not nervous, that's ridiculous. It just bothers me that I can't drive myself, I hate that. Did I mention that?" the older man grumbled and Mac took his eyes from the street to look at him but even before he could utter a single word Jack snapped.

"Eyes on the road, Mac!"

Mac snorted but did as he was told.

"Relax, I'm happy to drive you wherever you need to go and I'm sure you'll be behind the wheel and back on the job in no time. I know you, not even a fractured arm will hold you back for long."

"That's right, can't leave you out of my sight after all, I just don't know if the doc and Matty see it the same way..." Jack sighed. "We're here." he added and Mac parked the car in the next best spot along the road.

 

They were not in fact 'here' but had to walk for a little bit until they reached the house. But there were no parking spaces in the close vicinity of the house and Jack -used to memorizing even the smallest details of his surroundings- had noticed that even in the middle of the night.

 

Jack rang the door bell. And rang it again. Nothing happened. Mac looked at him questioningly.

"Back of the house, she mentioned that this might happen."

When they rounded the corner they already saw sparks flying and the sound of metal against metal. Jack waited until Angel put down her welding equipment to call her name.

"Angel!"

For a split second the woman froze at the voice but turned around then, wiping her forehead a bit.

 

"Jack! There you ar- Jack! What happened to you?" she asked startled, turning her gaze to the blond man next to Jack who looked around her age. "Oh sorry, you must be Jack's friend? The one who has a similar knack for using junk, not sleeping and eating on a need-to only basis?" She grinned, held out her hand. "Jack spoke highly of you. I'm Angel Diaz! Pleasure to meet you."

 

Mac gave Jack a look that seemed slightly amused on the surface but promised a talk later on.

"MacGyver, or just Mac for short. The pleasure is all mine. I'd like to say the same but I have to admit that I haven't heard your name until last night. To be fair, we were a bit busy."

 

"Yeah I can see that now..." Angel turned her eyes back on the older man, concern shining through. "Well as far as excuses go, that certainly is a good one. What happened?"

 

Jack smiled apologetically.

"Told you I can explain it. Well we had a job, some sort of data exchange with another branch but one of the competitors crashed the meeting and tried to get away with some of my friends' research and I did my job and got it back, with some difficulty but I did, hence the bruises."

"And the arm..." Angel added.

 

"Actually no, that one is on him alone." Mac chuckled. "You see, his reflexes are a curse sometimes. It's funny really, our friend Bozer and I are developing an AI..." Mac ignored Jack's mumbled 'stupid robots, man' to continue his story. "And Jack is a bit paranoid around them to put it mildly. So he joined us in the lab after the meeting right when we started our test run, our AI sat up, caught Jack by surprise and this guy's reflex was to KO punch our AI back on the table, fracturing his arm in the process. Took a bit of time in the ER to set that straight."

 

Angel was laughing but looking back and forth between the two men.

"You're kidding me, right?"

Jack scratched the back of his head.

"I wish but sadly no... word of caution, please never try to surprise me, my reflexes are Army trained and I would never forgive myself if I'd punch you accidentally."

 

She stared at him, nodded slowly.

"Okay... wow, that's one hell of an excuse, you win, you're forgiven!"

"Thanks, I'm glad and still sorry, but now you know how it goes, things like this happen at times so no worries if there is an extended radio silence, usually there is a good explanation."

 

Mac had studied the woman during her and Jack's exchange. Around his age, long dark hair in a messy bun, expressive but tired looking eyes, work clothes, dusty stains on them and her skin. He also noted superficial scratches on arms and legs, old as well as new and then his eyes fell on a dusty red bandana around her lower left calf. It took him a second to realise that the red colour wasn't uniform but at the middle a lot darker and more brownish in colour. Just then he also saw the very faint red streak mixed with sweat down to her ankle.

 

"Uhm sorry to interupt you two. Angel, I hope you don't mind me asking but what happend to your leg? A bandana doesn't really replace a proper bandage, you know?" With his question Mac drew Jack's attention to the very same injury.

"Aw kid, really? What did you do?"

"Would you stop calling me 'kid'? I'm not that young anymore, you know?"

Mac snorted despite his concern. "Good luck with that, I've been telling him the same thing for years, still calls me 'kid'."

 

Angel sniffed a little annoyed but let it go for now.

"It looks worse than it is really. I told you I was out looking for material yesterday, I slipped while climbing over the cars at the junkyard and cut my leg at some random piece of metal or glass, can't really tell, it was too dark to see."

That actually got a reaction from both men at the same time.

"Yesterday?" Jack said horrified while Mac asked. "Too dark?"

"Yes Jack, yesterday... I couldn't sleep, too many things on my mind, so I went out before sunrise already hence the lack of light hence too dark to see what it was exactly. Not that it really matters, I cut my leg either way. It's fine really, I have all my jabs, it's probably the one thing I'm really strict about with myself. Have to with all the stuff I'm working with."

 

"Well that's good to know at least, doesn't explain this..." Jack gestured at the bandana around her leg with his good hand.

"Oh you know how it is, I found a whole bunch of cool stuff that I can use and by the time I got back home and finally knew you were still alive and kicking, I had so many ideas that I got to work immediately. A short nap aside I have been on it since then. It doesn't bother me most of the time, a little sting here and there maybe... and really it's not like I could have done a whole lot about it anyway, I haven't gotten around to buying a new first-aid kit. I just moved in, remember?"

 

"What? Oh you've got to be kidding me, seriously! When you told me that you at least eat semi regularly I still had hope but you, little lady, really are even worse than him!" Jack grumbled, pointing an accusing finger at the woman in front of him.

 

"Hey!" Mac grumbled.

"Oh don't even start with me, Mac, you know it's true!"

"Not arguing with you about this now, Jack. I think it's more important to get that properly bandaged for now. You two catch up for a bit longer while I get the kit from my car and then I want to have a proper look at your work, that's what we're here for after all." With that Mac vanished back around the corner.

 

~*~

 

While Mac was gone Jack and Angel had talked a bit more about his work. The younger agent stopped just out of sight for a bit to listen in. He wasn't one to eavesdrop usually but with Jack one was able to learn a lot by just listening to him when the other thought he was alone. That's also how he got a bit more insight into Jack's relationship with Riley and Bozer alike. Jack was talking about the things they had done for work, re-telling a couple of stunts Mac had pulled himself with his improvisation skills. At times Mac was a bit jealous how his partner was so easily able to change up the truth just the right amount to make it plausible for a civilian without lying outright to their faces. Mac himself had done the same thing with Bozer for way too long but it never had been that easy. If he didn't trust Jack within an inch of his life, he would be a bit concerned with the man's ability to lie.

 

Mac heard Angel giggle while Jack recounted his wine bottle rocket incident, that -although awesome if he said so himself- still was a bit of a sore spot.

"I'm back..." he said while rounding the corner. The other two where sitting on a small bench to the side of Angel's work space. Quickly he had located an empty wooden crate to sit on in front of the woman. He opened the First-Aid kit and gently started to untie the bandana. Angel winced when the cloth also ripped off some of the already dried up pieces. The gash wasn't quite as superficial as Angel seemed to think and was still leaking. Not enough that the blood loss would be a problem but enough to keep the wound from scabbing over.

 

Jack winced in sympathy when he leaned over to look himself.

"Well girl, you really need to take better care of yourself..." he mumbled.

"Aw relax, I've seen worse..."

"And that's not reassuring at all, kid..." the oldest of them sighed.

"Yeah, I'm with Jack on that one, not really reassuring and I'm not an expert but I think this probably should have been stitched up yesterday... well too late for that now, I'm afraid, I'll just see what I can do. Jack, you alright to get me a bowl with warm water and a flannel?" he looked at his friend.

"I can do it!" Angel protested.

"You stay put, sweetheart, I got this, just tell me where I can find the things."

 

The woman sniffed in annoyance at being coddled and told what to do in her own house but still gave Jack directions to her kitchen.

"Is he always like this?" she asked softly when Jack had vanished inside the house.

"Worse, really..." Mac chuckled. "He can't stand to see his friends hurt, still hasn't understood that those friends feel the same way when he gets hurt but that's Jack, he's a teddy bear."

 

Mac cautiously traced the edge of the wound, trying to assess the damage and if there already were signs of infection (which wouldn't have surprised him with a wound like that that had been left unattended for over 24 hours). He let his fingertips ghost along Angel's calf.

"What happened here?" he asked softly when he found another scar, looked up at Angel whose face turned a good shade paler over the past minutes. "You alright?"

 

"Fine. That... remember how I said that I've seen worse? That would be the answer to that one. Don't tell Jack about it, if he reacted like that to a cut like this, he would have a stroke with this one. Happend while I was in South America, I was there with a bunch of people I met before, doing a rare group project, I usually work alone for a reason. In that case I was lucky. We were a bit outside in a jungle region... I was looking for material and apparently stumbled into some kind of private property. You know people there are accomodating and helpful and share almost everything with you if you ask nicely but they are pretty radical when it comes to strangers who trespass. From what I gathered and was told later on, they thought I was trying to steal their food and came after me with their guns. I was scared shitless and ran like hell and the next thing I knew I was tumbling down some hill and by the time I had the dizziness under control and looked up, I saw my leg in quite the odd angle. Nothing better to give you a good reality check than seeing your own bone sticking out..." 

 

She recounted that memory with a far away look, Mac knew she was remembering this incident in rather gruesome detail, it's not something you'll ever forget.

"And then?" he prodded gently when she trailed off.

"I kept silent for a bit, not that I could have made a sound with the pain I was in, in case they were still looking for me. I got lucky, I really did, my friends got worried when I hadn't been back in time for dinner and somehow convinced the locals we were staying with to help them look for me. I was half way passed out by the time they found me. Next thing I truly remember is waking up in a hospital in Sao Paolo over a week later.

 

"Wow..." replied MacGyver softly, tracing the scar. "Being an artist apparently is a much more dangerous occupation than I thought..."

 

Angel huffed.

"It's not that bad, I suppose it's mostly my fault. I'm a bit of a klutz at times but I like to push myself. Doing this stuff in a controlled environment like this, it's nice but sometimes I like roughing it... in fact, if you ask me, the stuff I did in those times are the best. Nothing like creating something while pushing your own limits."

 

Mac grinned.

"You know, I think I know what you mean it's the same for me. I'm just endlessly lucky to have someone like Jack to have my back. His fussing might be annoying at times, but it's good to have him by my side."

 

"He cares a lot about you, that's someting I noticed that first night already when he talked about you, he had a very fond glint in his eyes..."

 

"Well the feeling is mutual. In a way, he's the closest thing to family I have." Mac confessed. The young agent fell silent. He had an inkling that Jack was listening in on their conversation just like he had done before, even hurt like he was, it wouldn't take him that long to get some water otherwise.

 

Angel didn't seem to notice the time passing as much though.

"You know it's funny, I think I need to stop meeting you guys when I'm sleep deprived. I swear I'm not normally the sharing type and yet there is something about Jack and you that just breaks down all my filters without me realising. You are a lucky man, MacGyver."

 

"That I am, I don't doubt it. But I think that feeling is mutual as well, I've known Jack for a while and he seldomly makes friends with people that fast. So consider yourself lucky as well, I think you already got adopted into Jack Dalton's circle of friends, meaning he'll fuss over you whenever he can and he will always have your back when needed."

 

Jack chose that moment to finally return with the water and Mac might have imagined it but for a second it looked like Jack's eyes were a bit watery when he came into view.

"Sorry it took so long, couldn't find the flannel where you told me. I have to say, your kitchen is a bit of a mess... Bozer would have a fit..." Jack chuckled.

 

"Yeah sorry, just moved in, remember? And I don't exactly spend all that much time inside anyway." Angel countered while Mac took the wet flannel and started to clean the wound and the rest of her leg as gently as he was able to. The woman hissed at the sensation anyway.

"Sorry." was all Mac offered.

 

It didn't get much better when he went to work with the disinfectant. From the corner of his eye he saw how Jack gently started to rub the back of Angel's neck to distract her from the pain. A well practiced move indeed.

"Well I'm semi optimistic that we took care of this soon enough still to prevent any major infection but you really need to keep a close eye on this and clean it regularly because if I'm wrong this could end rather unpleasant." The blond said when he taped the bandage securly around the calf. "Promise? I'll leave the kit with you, you might just need it more than I do in my car at the moment."

 

Angel sighed, happy that the burning sensation was over now, nodded reluctantly.

"Promise, thanks Mac, Jack!" she said and took a short moment to gather herself again while Mac packed up the kit again.

 

"Alright, how about the tour now?" she asked, smiling again, getting up from her seat.

 

~*~

 

"So, Angel is nice..." Mac offered on their way back to Jack's apartment. "Not exactly what I expected, to be honest..."

 

Jack grinned brightly.

"She is, isn't she? I knew you two would get along famously and I don't only mean when you two started talking shop and I only understood every third word or something."

 

"Well I think it's amazing what she does. For me, I see stuff lying around and immediately know what I could use it for, build what I need in that particular moment but collecting stuff, seeing the big picture and having a vision of something completely different and making it work like her, that's something else. And I have a feeling that I know what drew you to her, she's another stray with family issues." Mac said, smiling softly. He meant every word he said.

 

Jack groaned in reply to that.

"That's exactly what Riley said, I don't see it. I mean I'm not like 'Fagin' or something, it's not like I go out to collect you kids for my band of misfits, you know I don't."

 

Mac huffed at the rather surprising Oliver Twist reference and softly patted Jack's thigh while he waited for a green light.

"True, I know you don't and yet you really seem to draw us in and always are for us exactly what we need you to be. It's a good thing Jack, don't worry about it. All I meant to say is, she is nice, I like her and I think she will fit right in with us. It'll be difficult to keep stuff from her with all four of us but we can manage that if that's what you want."

 

Jack sighed wistfully.

"Man, sometimes our job kind of sucks with all the lying..."

Mac snorted at that. "Hey preaching to the choir here, I know that shit first hand."

"Yeah I know, just sayin'... but hey, you liked her that's what's important..." he grinned, closing his eyes against the sun.

The younger man frowned at that statement but a soft snore from his right side prevented him from asking for clarification.

 

~*~

 

Things at the Foundation went back to 'mostly' normal about two weeks later, when Jack finally lost his patience and came back into work. Matty was happy -even if she hid it well the team was able to see anyway- but the doc was rather unhappy with the turn of events.

 

"I'm fine, don't you worry about me, doc!"

"I'm not worried about you, Mr Dalton, but about my reputation as a medical doctor. Your arm has been fractured, that's no easy break that heals quickly and even that would take at least four weeks. I made an oath when I became a doctor and you are in no way healed enough to be in the field."

 

Jack was a bit taken aback. He was a regular in medical and Doctor Larson should be used to his behaviour and yet Jack never had seen her this passionately fighting for her point.

 

"Okay... no field work, got it. I think I can handle that for a bit longer and make an arrangement with the boss. But can't you get my arm out of this sling and enormous cast into something a little easier to handle? Then I at least can help around here again, deal?"

 

The doc frowned.

"I make no promises just yet, Dalton. Let me get an X-Ray of that arm to see how far the healing has come, if I'm satisfied with that, I can put you in a more flexible cast but only then, understood?"

 

Jack nodded.

"Got it."

 

~*~

 

About half an hour later, Jack returned into the war room, whistling a happy tune, outfitted with a sleek, blue cast on his arm. All the occupants turned to look at him.

"What's the verdict, Jack?" Matty wanted to know.

"Cleared to get to work around here, not so much for field work though, doc says that'll take longer, sorry Matty."

 

"Alright, I can work with that. Maybe you finally manage to finish your reports and hand them in while we're not running missions." Jack gawped at that while Mac and Riley snorted in glee. "You too, MacGyver, I distinctly remember reminding you of at least two reports that are still due as well." Matty said, fixing the blond agent with a stare. Mac quickly shut up.

"In the meantime, you two can help Riley with all the information from the drug cartel case that got us in this predicament in the first place. There are still too many open questions for my liking. And Jack, the day after tomorrow, Gamma Team will go out on a mission. Should be a relatively simple pick up, I'd like for you to take over mission control in here, in case they run into trouble."

 

"Roger that, boss!" Jack nodded.

 

The four of them relocated into the lab after that where Mac and Bozer returned to their work on their AI while Jack joined Riley and had her bring him up to speed on what she found out already. They all had kept him more or less in the loop but it still was different having all the details spread out on a screen in front of him. Not to mention that something about the information didn't add up and it bothered him, like they were overlooking something pretty obvious.

 

"How about my famous burgers tonight, guys, in celebration of Jack's return to work?" Bozer asked when the clock ticked passed five and he stretched his back, sighing at the satifying sound of his spine clicking back into place.

 

"That sounds like an awesome idea, Boze..." Mac grinned. He might forget to eat at times but he simply never was able to say no to Bozer's burgers.

 

"I'm absolutely down for that, I'll bring the beer!" Jack added, mimicking Bozer and stretching his arms over his head. "Ri?"

 

"Hm? Yeah, sounds good, just... Angel and I actually were on for a girls night tonight... I'll text her, see if she wants to join us and reschedule that..." the Hacker said, exchanging her fast typing from her laptop to her phone.

 

"I still don't know if Jack thought it through when he introduced those two..." Bozer whispered into Mac's ear, made the blond chuckle.

"Oh I doubt it, but I think it's nice for Riley to have another woman around and if that is on the expense of Jack at times, hey, I'm not complaining."

 

"Okay, we are in!" announced Riley a moment later.

 

Over the two weeks since Mac had met Angel and had told Jack that the woman would fit into their little circle just fine in the process, they had met up at various points. While Jack wasn't allowed to work, the whole team had been grounded since Matty wouldn't dream to suggest that they team up with someone else. It was nice having time for things like that.

 

Bozer had proven to be the hardest to convince in the beginning and Mac understood perfectly why. He had been the newest addition to the team, he knew first hand how it was when everyone around you lies to you, he hadn't been comfortable doing the same thing to someone else but after Mac talked to him for a while, he had come around and just like the blond agent had promised, Angel fit right in.

 

Riley had been intrigued by all the places Angel had been to already and listened with interest to her stories. Angel also knew enough of pop culture and nerd stuff to win Bozer over in a heartbeat and Mac and Angel already had bonded over their building hobby anyway. And Jack... well, Jack looked over his group of friends happily, satisfied that it worked out so well.

 

"You think she might be what he needs to finally get over Nikki?" Jack asked Bozer that same night while watching Mac showing off to Angel and Riley with some impromptu tricks making the two women giggle and aw at the same time.

Bozer startled.

"Who? Angel?" he looked at Jack. They all were slightly concerned about that specific matter. The whole story with Nikki was so messed up (even more so, now that Bozer knew the whole story) and Mac played his cards so close to his chest that even the people closest to him didn't know what was going on. "Well..." he said thoughtfully. "I guess she's pretty good at distracting him, she does get him in a way we don't... but Jack, man, I don't think that's what's really going on here..."

"Aw, give it time, Boze, they really might be what the other needs. She gets him and his way of thinking and he might just be the shot at 'home' she never had... hope goes a long way, my friend..." Jack said, voice full of sincerity.

"Yeah, so does a river in Egypt, is all I'm saying, bro..." Bozer murmured under his breath with a raised eyebrow at Jack who was smiling at Angel when she looked over at them.

 

~*~

 

Another two weeks later and the doc grudgingly cleared Jack for field duty again as long as he kept a brace around his forearm, to stabilize the freshly healed bones and an insistent advice to not engange in hand to hand combat if at all possible. That was fine by Jack, he liked to keep the enemy at bay from a distance more anyway since close contact generally made it more difficult to keep an eye on Mac and Riley (and Bozer if he's out with them) although punching the bad guys in the face was rather satisfying as well.

 

The clearance came just at the right time for them to go on a follow up mission based on some leads Riley had been able to dig up so far.

 

"Man, it's good to be back again..." Jack sighed as he checked their surroundings.

"Don't get too excited, Dalton, excitement is what gets you killed in the field!" came Matty's stern voice over the comms.

 

"Yeah right, boss, that's not on my agenda today, so no worries. How does it look, Riley?"

 

The Hacker and Bozer were stationed in a surveillance van a little distance away, keeping an eye on them via satellite.

"Good, a bit too good if you ask me. It's like nobody is here, not one soul..."

"Well I won't complain if the mission turns out to be a milk run for once..." the older agent quipped.

"I don't think that's what Riley was saying, Jack. And for the record it's good to have you back in the field Jack but I'm with Riley on this one, I don't have a good feeling..." Mac commented.

 

As if on cue bullets came flying left, right and centre and all the two agents could do was to run for cover.

"Dammit, everytime Mac, everytime, you had to jinx it..." Jack groaned, cautiously trying to see where the shooters were located from his position. "Riley, do you have eyes on the shooters? Pretty sure one of them is on the roof of the building ahead of us but I'm guessing we're dealing with at least two or three more... how exactly did you miss that?" Jack tried his best to get aim at the one shooter he was pretty sure of while he could hear furious typing on the other end of his comms.

 

"Sorry, best guess I have is that they were using some kind of shielding, something that couldn't be detected by our satellite... I knew something was off... good news is now that they are shooting at you, they had to compromise their cover..." Riley rattled off the exact coordinates to Jack which made finding his targets a hell of a lot easier.

 

"Errr.. Jack?" Mac sounded tentative next to him but the older agent was too focused on clearing their surroundings to look at Mac in that moment.

"Yeah buddy? You got an idea to speed this whole thing up a bit?" he asked, firing round after round in various directions.

"Not just yet, I mean I do have an idea but we need to get to the opposite building for that but I thought you should know that I'm bleeding?"

 

That got the attention of everyone it seemed as Matty, Riley and Bozer yelled 'What?!' in unison over the comms and Jack abruptly turned his head to Mac who indeed looked a little pale around the nose.

"No worries guys, I think it's just a flesh wound, one of the bullets must have scraped my thigh when we were running for cover, pretty sure nothing major was hurt..." he tried to downplay it which might have worked with his three friends who couldn't see him but not with Jack.

 

"Aw hell, bud, you need to tell me this shit immediately..." he gave up his quest to eliminate the shooters for a moment to look at Mac's leg.

"Yeah, that's a flesh wound alright, does bleed like hell though."

"Can you get it under control for now or do we have to abort this mission?" the voice of Matty sounded controlled and calculating, obviously intently studying the satellite feed in the hope to find something on it that could help her agents.

 

"Do we ever? 'Abort mission' isn't in our vocabulary, boss, you know that. Nah we can manage, right Mac?" Jack said, all the while getting out of his jacket and pulling his belt off. He made quick work with pushing the bunched up jacket on the wound and putting pressure on it with the belt to stop the bleeding.

"Yeah, we can manage..." Mac winced but once the initial pain of pulling the belt tight around his thigh ebbed away, he was able to get his bearings again. "Pretty sure a jacket and belt doesn't replace a proper bandage either, huh Jack?" he huffed, looking more intently at his surroundings to formulate a plan to turn this mission around again.

 

The older agent laughed under his breath at that, going back to shooting at their enemies.

"You might be right about that, better we don't tell her about this then, eh?" he chuckled.

 

~*~

 

Back in the van Bozer and Riley looked at each other questioningly.

"What are they talking about?" he asked softly, careful that his friends couldn't hear him.

Riley shrugged.

"No clue although... 'her'... might have something to do with the time Mac met Angel the first time, she had mentioned that those two had been on her case because of a scratch on her calf or something, but I don't know any details... remind me to ask her about that, when this nightmare is over." Riley said, switching between various satellite images and tell Jack if one of the attackers moved.

 

"I'll try my best... ooh, that reminds me, remember the night we had burgers?" Bozer whispered.

"The day Jack got back to work? Sure, what about it?" Riley looked at Bozer for a second because something in his voice intrigued her.

"Jack asked me if Angel might be the answer to Mac's Nikki trauma..."

 

The Hacker couldn't help it, she gaped at Bozer who looked kind of amused.

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly... I swear papa bear is the most oblivious person on this good earth..." he drawled.

 

Riley groaned, rubbing her eyes in fond frustration.

"Seriously it's hard enough to wrap my head around this anyway, I really don't want to be stuck in the middle of this train wreck... god I don't have time for this now..." she grumbled under her breath, returning her attention back to her screens and filing away this piece of news for later inspection and probably a lot of beer.

 

"Okay Riley, how does it look?" Mac asked.

"So far, as far as I can see, it's fine, hoping that there aren't more people hidden under this stupid shielding..." frustration, that she couldn't do anything about that particular blind spot from her position, was evident in her voice at this point.

"Not a problem, Riley, don't worry... we are on the move now, just tell me the second you see something moving other than us." came Jack's calm voice over the comms, soothing her nerves a bit in return.

 

~*~

 

With just a tiny bit of luck and a whole lot of 'boom' curtesy to Mac as a distraction, the two agents had managed to retrieve the information they had come for and leave the scene without further damage. A field medic who had been waiting on stand-by with ex-fil stitched up Mac's leg on the way home already so that he was exempted from a visit to medical which was a plus in Mac's books even if the stitches had hurt like hell.

 

"Well now, I'll say it for all of us, this was another epic desaster..." Jack commented when he sat down in the war room for debrief.

 

"I'd like to disagree with that statement, Jack." Matty opened the meeting when she entered the room, just in time to hear Jack's words. "While the mission was a problematic one, I give you that, the information you got is valuable to our case, and that in itself is a success!" she tapped a few things on her tablet and a bunch of documents appeared on the screen. "Analytics already found a pretty extensive trail for the kartell's drug trafficking and money laundering activities all over the US. And as it happens, one particular big deal is slated to happen very soon in..."

"...Los Angeles!" Riley interupted, most accustomed to reading these kinds of data sheets, quickly following the same trail Matty and the analysts did.

 

"Wow, that's ballsy to bring business directly to our door step like that..." Jack said. "I mean monumentally stupid... but ballsy nonetheless."

 

"Yeah well, the big question is, will this deal still go down when they know that we have this information... I mean, this mission wasn't exactly a highlight in terms of stealth..." wondered Bozer out loud.

 

"Thank you Mr. Bozer, that's actually a very good point. The answer is we are about 99% sure the deal will go down because there was some very specific data trail that we were able to intercept after you left that strongly suggests the deal is still a go mainly because it's planned for some time over the next three or four days apparently. Not enough time for a kartell of that size to get in secure contact with everyone involved to re-schedule..." Matty explained.

 

"Yeah and they won't risk pissing anyone off by telling one party and throwing another one under the bus." Jack nodded. It made sense.

 

"So, the next three or four days? Any chance we get a more specific timeline than that? We can't keep an eye on all of LA for all of these days. It's simply not possible." interjected Mac, shaping and re-shaping a couple of paper clips into something vaguely familiar to Jack. It took the agent a moment to realize that it was pretty much a very small copy of Angel's most recent work of art. He grinned.

 

"Afraid not, that's as specific as it's going to get with the data we have..." Riley piped up from her station. She had quickly booted up her laptop and had started work on all the documents. "Unless some of this information is a code for another code, we have no clue as to time and location." she explained. "It just obviously is quite the big deal involving various parties." she continued, all while typing and trying different decoding programs in case luck was on their side for once and they'd find the right one.

 

"Various parties, so do we assume we're dealing with representitives from all around the world?" Mac asked.

 

"We can't be sure but evidence suggest that that just might be the case... the kartell has a history of working world wide but we never had enough information to pin them down like that. If we just could find the smallest trace of when and where this is supposed to go down, we wouldn't just take down one of the most notorious kartell's in the US but also could bust a significant portion of others. This could be a really big thing." Matty said, determination in her voice.

 

"That might just be the reason why we won't find evidence of time and location in these files though..." the whole crew turned to Bozer at his words.

"Think about it... if I wanted to be sure to get information to someone that nobody else could find or understand... I wouldn't write it down, not on paper and definitely not online. If I were a dealer of this size I would have a very small circle of people I actually carry out the negotiations with in the various countries, people I met personally and consider trustworthy enough. Those are the people who need to get and understand the information I want them to know, nobody else. I would make sure to have a code for every single one of them and then I would get the message delivered personally. No paper, no data, just a good old fashioned game of telephone with a twist. Say, you want them to know the deal is on Saturday in Central Park, turn that into code, let it be delivered and only your partner will know when and where. And if the message gets intercepted they will have jack shit because neither does the delivery guy know what the sentence means nor necessarily who it's for if they are clever enough to use more than one delivery guy. You know what I mean?"

 

To say that the team was a bit gobsmacked by Bozer's take on the issue would be an understatement.

 

Jack was the first to find his speech again.

"While I do find the way your brain works mildly concerning, that would actually make sense and sound absolutely plausible. Would also explain why blowing off this particular deal isn't possible anymore with the short time frame. Well done, buddy!" He held his hand out for a fist bump that Bozer gladly took.

"Thanks Jack."

 

"It seems there is hope for your proper agent status after all, Bozer." Matty quipped, turning serious again the next second. "That doesn't help us with the case at hand however. And if your particular theory is correct we have no lead whatsoever for this deal."

 

"Meaning?" asked Mac.

 

"Meaning that we have to keep a close eye on basically the whole freaking city with you and all other teams on stand-by and ready to go immediately while Riley and our analysts go over every single piece of data again. Maybe someone messed up along the way after all." the director said, typing the order into her tablet to inform all team leaders.

 

"Sounds like a plan. Not exactly a good one but a plan." Riley nodded and began her work.

 

The blond agent wasn't exactly happy with that though.

"Don't you think that's a pretty high gamble? We should at least be able to eliminate some parts of the city, don't you think?"

 

"Point." nodded Jack. "Let's see... we are assuming a big deal, big meet up of one seller and two to three buyers give or take. Neither of those will come alone, so we are talking at least three seperate protection details, most definitely heavily armed in case the deal goes south. Somehow I don't see these people driving particularly small cars either. What would be a good place to meet then?"

 

"Somewhere with enough space, mostly quiet and on the remote side. No prying eyes or witnesses I'd say. That eliminates all the highly frequented tourist places, malls, clubs and restaurants as well as parks, I guess." Mac thought out loud.

 

"Yeah I would exclude places that fit these criteria but are located directly or very near to any of the main streets as well that would be way to obvious." added Bozer his two cents.

 

"And if I also exclude anything close to schools, community centers and other official buildings we can relatively safely eliminate about 30% of LA which leaves us with quite the area to monitor still." Riley added. She had been inputting the information into her program and showed all of them a freshly edited map of LA with various blocked out spaces.

 

"Good detective work guys, I'm inclined to take that risk and go with these parameters. And seeing that you can't do much more than wait and be ready when needed anyway, I suggest you head home and get a good rest, the next few days will be rather long. Riley, the analysts are working on it, I leave it up to you if you want to join them now or if you need to rest as well. Thank you, I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning." Matty ordered, dismissing them for now. She wanted this mission to be a success but despite their valuable contribution she saw clearly that her team was exhausted from the mission they just got back from. They earned their short break, let other people earn their pay for now.

 

~*~

 

The hours of surveillance dragged on and on over the following two days. The whole team was gathered back in the war room, biding their time. Mac was pacing in front of the screen wall, distractedly throwing and catching a ball while keeping an eye on the various satellite feeds. Riley was sitting in front of two laptops simultaneously, checking and cross referencing their information again and again, hoping something would finally give and provide her with the information she needed. She had the same weird feeling like Jack that something just didn't add up and there was something fishy going on with this deal.

 

Bozer was dozing in a chair next to her, exhausted from sitting around, waiting for whatever and lulled to sleep by Riley's typing. It was getting late again without anything happening at all.

 

Matty had left some time before to see if there was anything new with the analysts or the other teams who also were monitoring the city. They all knew that it wasn't possible since Matty would be the first informed if anything even remotely interesting had popped up but it seem even their calm director could become a little antsy.

 

"Your favourite friend is back, kids and he comes bearing gifts!" Jack announced when entering the room again, placing a carton of muffins and coffee for everyone on the table, alleviating the tension in the room just a bit with these simple things.

"You are a life saver, Jack, in every sense..." Mac said, patting Jack's shoulder on his way to the table, eagerly grabbing a cup.

 

"So I've been told once or twice before... yeah..." the older one grinned.

"Anything new while I was gone?" he added, less than optimistic about the answer to this question seeing that nothing had changed in the war room.

"Nada... you think we were wrong after all and they called off the deal?" Riley asked, nibbling on a chocolate chip muffin.

"Don't know for sure but I'm pretty positive that we are not wrong assuming it's still on. We thought it through so many times, it's the only outcome that makes sense." Mac said between sips of coffee. "I'll admit waiting is the least fun part of the job but we have to be patient, something's going to pop up sooner or later."

 

"Yeah, I'd prefer sooner, my back is killing me and I'd love to sleep in my own bed again..." Bozer piped up, awake again due to the smell of coffee and chocolate.

 

"I hear ya, bro!" Jack said while Riley and Mac couldn't help but nod in agreement.

 

Their cozy moment of commiseration was rudely interrupted by Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' also known as Jack's ring tone because his love for _Die Hard_ literally had no limits.

 

"It's Angel, act natural guys..." he announced, checking the caller ID. They had told the artist that they were having some team building event thing over the next few days and getting in touch might be a bit difficult.

 

"If it isn't my favourite artist, what can I do for you?" Jack answered the call, a warm smile evident in his voice even if it didn't show on his face.

 

"Jack...?" was all he got in return at first. Soft and shaky. He also heard something in the background but couldn't place it, muffled as it was. He frowned.

 

"Angel?" he tried again. "What is it, darling?" His concern was mirrored in the three faces looking at him expectantly. Jack motioned for Riley to tap into his phone to trace back the call while he put it on speaker. Something was off, he felt it.

 

"Jack... I'm sorry... I didn't know who else to call..." Angel's voice was barely above a whisper with tears and terror, close to inaudible while her breathing obviously was short and agitated.

 

"No, sweetheart, no, don't say sorry for that! What's the matter, just tell me and I see what I can do..." Jack tried to be as calm and collected as possible. His training helped him to easily slip into the understanding agent dealing with shell-shocked witnesses role.

 

"I don't know... I'm at the junkyard... I think I might be in trouble, Jack... I don't know... there are men... so many of them, obviously fighting and they have guns Jack, a lot of them..." her breath hitched with every bit she said and the colour drained from Jack's face when he saw Riley curse silently and frantically typing away and only a few seconds later they all saw on the big screen what their friend was trying to tell them.

"Where are you right now?" Jack asked, already on his way out of the war room, knowing that the others were hot on his heels. "Are you hurt?"

 

"Yeah, no... scratches, I slipped between two totalled cars while trying to hide..." she replied, seemingly calming down a bit now that she had Jack on the line and wasn't competely alone anymore.

 

"Okay good, darling, that's good, stay there, make as little noise as you can, I'm on my way to get you, alright? It's going to be just fine. I just need a few more things, can you do that for me?" he asked not waiting for the woman on the other line to answer.

 

Now that he knew what he was hearing the background noise got more clear to the agent. "Okay first, be honest with me, are they really just scratches? You know how I feel about you referring to bleeding gashes as just scratches, kid..."

 

"Yes, I think... can't see, it's too dark back here... but I don't feel anything wrong..." she whispered which didn't exactly reassure Jack since Angel obviously was in a state of shock and probably wouldn't feel anything even if she was shot at the moment.

 

"Alright, I'll take it, don't move, don't want to alert anyone to your presence, I'm almost there." Jack continued while Mac navigated the streets at breakneck speed and Riley coordinated with Matty. "Okay second thing, what do you hear, darling, any chance you can understand what they are saying?"

 

"Not sure... they seem to argue about something... many accents, it's hard to make out... one is talking in Russian I think, at least that's what it sounds like... another one... might be Chinese... maybe Cantonese, don't know... and another... he talks in Italian... something about merchendise that's missing? And stolen money... he sounds really pissed off... calling whoever he's talking to a traitorous bastard or something... Jack what is this? I'm scared..."

 

"Yes, I know you are, sweetheart but I'm almost there, just a moment longer, alright? You did great, kid, it's going to be fine, just wait!" Jack swallowed hard. The big meet-up they've been waiting for turned out to be a right nightmare that's rapidly going south while they were listening and Angel was pretty much stuck in the middle.

 

They had known that something was off about this deal, now they knew it was because this meeting hadn't been about the deal at all but about something else, most likely a fight about who gets what and all. Turf wars of that kind always turned ugly pretty quickly so it was essential to get Angel out of there as quickly as possible.

 

All four occupants of the car froze when the unmistakable sound of shots being fired sounded from the small tinny speaker of Jack's phone, accompanied by a shrill squeak, followed by what sounded like Angel clapping her hand over her own mouth to muffle whatever shocked sound might want to escape. At least that's what Jack hoped was happening with all his heart because the second option he didn't want to even think about.

"Drive faster Mac..." he said through clenched teeth although he knew that Mac was driving as fast as he possibly could without potentially killing them all in the process.

 

The following few minutes turned out to be something out of a bad B-class action thriller. They weren't able to hear Angel anymore which was worrying because they had no idea if she was even still close to the phone, not to mention alive to be heard, while the shooting and shouts of the bad guys got louder and more rapid. Even if they hadn't found the woman yet it was just a matter of time that someone would stumble over her in search of cover and that couldn't end well for their friend.

 

The second they stopped close by the junkyard Jack was out of the car and off in a sprint.

"We'll bring her home safe and sound, I promise Jack!" Mac murmured next to him, when he stopped on the outer wall, taking cover, assessing the situation as best he could.

"Yeah, we better..." Jack ground out, checking the clip of his gun once more although he knew perfectly well that it was full and ready to go.

 

Mac glanced at his friend and partner, while mainly searching his surrounding for things he could use as a distraction. He saw the tension in Jack, not necessarily unusal in the midst of a mission. But he also noticed the barely there tremble in Jack's fingers and that in itself was so out of character for Jack, something Mac only associated with moments when Jack was very close to losing something important to him. He didn't want to think about it, not one to believe in superstition but still unwilling to jinx it and yet Cairo came to mind.

 

He swallowed.

"This is noone's fault, Jack! Look at me: you know that right? Least of all yours, whatever you are currently cooking up in your head. If anything this is a good thing, without you, she would have had no one to call for help in the first place. Meeting you was the best that could happen to her in this moment! Now, take a deep breath, we got this, we'll bring her home!" Mac whispered. "And we're going to take down all these people at the same time, making the streets just that little be safer!" The blond agent saw the tremble cease and Jack's eyes turn more determined and less haunted, the tension in his body stayed but he took that as the win it was.

 

"I'll hold you to this, bro, what's the plan?" was all Jack said with a sharp nod.

 

"ETA of back-up and I think every single cop in the city that Matty could get in about five minutes, guys. We'll just have to keep this contained for five more minutes!" Riley chose this moment to inform them, her voice tight and focused as well. "Also I managed to turn the security system of the yard back on, bad news is, I have some blind spots still where they probably shot the cameras but the good news is, I still have visual enough to be reasonably sure that they don't have Angel!" she added her voice only slightly shaking when she said the last part.

 

"Good and I think I have just the idea to distract them enough for the remaining time until back-up is here." Mac said focusing on a pile of random stuff close by.

 

"That's the spirit!" Jack grinned even if he had no clue what Mac had in mind.

 

Jack would have loved to go in guns blazing but he knew the odds were against him and he trusted Mac. He stayed put, keeping a close eye out while Mac had one of his moments, building what Jack secretly hoped would be a huge bang.

 

"Jack, watch your six!" Bozer's voice snapped over the comms and the older agent reacted without question, turning around just as one black clad man stumbled around the corner. Swiftly and silently he knocked him out.

"That was a close one, thanks Boze! How did you know?" Jack couldn't help feeling curious, he had assumed that Bozer had stayed behind with Riley.

 

"You're welcome, Jack. Perks of having the panoramic view!" Jack met Mac's eyes for a second who might be focusing on his work but still listened.

The older agent instinctively raised his gaze high and was able to make out something reflecting the moonlight on the roof of the next building, quickly putting two and two together.

"Nice thinking, Bozer, do you have anything to add to Riley's report?"

"I would have said so before if I did, bro. As it is, from up here, this looks exactly like a paintball parcours just with less paint and more real bullets, man. It seems it's like every man for himself down there, everyone is taking cover and shooting at whatever moves but not a single sign of Angel."

 

For some reason did Bozer's report sound a little more reassuring to the duo on the ground than when Riley said the same thing because Bozer had the general overview and would also be able to make out the bodies lying around that Riley most likely didn't see on her cameras. If their friend wasn't there, there still was a high chance that she was alright and hidden away.

"Duck!" Mac snapped while doing the same thing and just seconds later a deafening boom resounded over the area and a wave of pressure pushed them down and shook the whole junkyard to the foundation.

 

Silence reigned over the place for a long moment. The shooting inside shocked to a stop. Mac had timed this distraction perfectly with the arrival of back-up and exactly that silence got broken by the sound of dozens of tactical guns clicking of their safety all around the area.

"You are surrounded, put your guns down!" A stern voice sounded loud and clear.

 

Jack and Mac both laughed in relief, happy like never before to hear Director Matty Webber's voice.

It took another moment and a handful of warning shots until the tell-tale sound of clattering weapons came from inside and every single one of them finally relaxed.

 

Bozer and Riley joined Mac and Jack shortly after and together they entered the yard, which resembled a bit of a war zone.

The moment the adrenaline rush of catching the bad guys or at least the ones that were still alive subsided, Jack started to get antsy again, worrying about Angel once more. Still he waited for Matty to give them the go ahead that everyone was under control before they started looking to prevent any surprises. That didn't stop him from scanning his surroundings.

 

They quickly split up, starting on the many piles of crashed cars and other stuff, calling their friend while looking in every possible crevice and hoping for the best. It wasn't entirely impossible that some bullets had ricocheted and had hit her even if she was hidden away somewhere.

 

"Guys, I think I found her phone but she's nowhere around here..." Mac said, crouching down to pick up the slightly cracked phone inbetween two wrecked cars just like Angel had told them where she initially hid. A small smile played over his lips when he checked and the screen still lit up. He pulled out his flashlight to further look into the small space. "Seems like she crawled away from here, further into the yard." he shared his findings with the others who quickly joined him at his general area since it was highly unlikely that Angel would have managed to go further away without being seen.

 

Calling her name over and over again over the general bustle that always came with a mission accomplished and various arrests being made, it took the team a while to hear the faint knocking but when they did they all moved like one, drawn to the soft sound like dogs to a bone. It was a car further in the back, pretty much boxed in by other cars and a container with scrap metal.

"Angel?" Jack called again and quickly all of them zeroed in on another knock from the trunk.

"Bozer, can you give me that?" Mac told his oldest friend, pointing to a long piece of metal next to him.

With joined force they got the trunk open.

 

"Angel!" Jack gasped when he laid eyes on the shivering, crying woman who had rolled herself up into a tight ball as small as she was able to. She flinched a little when Jack first tried to grab her. "Hey sweetheart, it's me... it's all of us, you're safe now... shh, it's alright, everything is fine..." he whispered. Mac, Riley and Bozer took a respectful step back to give their friend a bit of space and not to overwhelm her in her state. It took Jack a couple of minutes of softly talking to the woman for her to relax enough to pull her out of the trunk.

 

"Jack..." she whimpered, clinging to him as tightly as she could manage (which wasn't very tight at all given that she was still trembling like a leaf). "It's alright, darling!" the oldest of them rambled on. "We saved you, everything is alright, baby, come on look at me..." he said a tiny thread of desperation in his voice because Angel had hidden her face against his shoulder, keeping her eyes closed tightly.

 

Silently Mac had joined him, checking over the woman in Jack's arms with a worried expression in his eyes. "Jack..." he said softly, cautiously. "She needs medical attention, now..."

 

Like a cold shower these words had taken away the numbing feeling of relief that had made it possible for Jack to firstly only focus on Angel herself and getting her out of the car. Now, however, he noticed all the 'not so good' signs. The woman in his arms was shaking violently, cold to the touch and yet sweaty. He noticed streaks of dirt, scratches on arms and legs that scabbed over already but would need a thorough cleaning anyway. He noticed blood matting her hair on the back of her head but worst of all despite the overall cold feeling he now realised the warm wetness on his hands at her back.

 

But before he could give into even the smallest fraction of panic, he saw Riley and Bozer leading the paramedics to his side with a stretcher. He hadn't even noticed that they had left, leaving just Mac by his side.

Placing Angel on the stretcher proved to be a little difficult at first, she refused to let go of Jack, looking him in the eye for the first time that evening, with deeply seated fear in her glassy, unfocused eyes. "No..." she whimpered again.

 

"It's alright, sweetheart, let go and let the docs look after you, I'll be right by your side, I promise, nothing bad will happen to you... you just have to let go now... please, Angel, trust me..." Jack whispered, gently prying her hands off of him, if reluctantly. Softly he placed her hands at her sides on the stretcher and nodded at the paramedics, taking a step back to let them through.

 

That seemed like a bad idea though. Angel lost sight of him and her other friends and started to panic even more, she struggled on the stretcher for a bit before she fell slack and silent with a pained whine.

 

"What the fuck happened, what did you do?" Jack snapped as the medics hurriedly started to get to work.

"Jack, calm down, I'm sure she's fine, she's exhausted, I'm sure she just passed out, she's in shock, it happens. You know that, we've been through this together more times than I care to count. You know the drill. Let them do their job and then you can make sure she's alright." Mac had firmly pushed both his hands against Jack's chest to keep him in place, talking calmly to him, hiding well enough that he was worried as well. They all were, he assumed Angel passed out from shock and exhaustion but there was a small chance that she passed out from blood loss which would be indefinitely worse.

 

Jack stared at Mac, ready to struggle and bolt for a second before taking a deep shuddering breath, closing his eyes and visibly deflating.

"You're right... sorry... man that surely didn't earn me any points on the cool, collected agent scale, huh?" he huffed shakily.

Mac chuckled.

"It sure didn't, my friend, but... you had good reasons..." he patted the older one on the shoulder.

They joined Bozer and Riley who were standing close to the still working paramedics. The Hacker looked up and tightly slid her arms around Jack's middle, giving him as much comfort as she got from him in return with this side hug.

 

"They say she's going to be alright..." Bozer informed them. "She crashed due to exhaustion and the rapidly dropping adrenaline levels or something... they have to check her out thoroughly at the hospital, especially her head with this nasty open bruise on her head and stitch up the wound on her side but although it looks like a load of blood, apparently the blood loss wasn't that bad over all, we found her in time. They fix her up as best they can here and take her to the hospital soon." At these words Bozer looked at Jack especially and Riley tightened her hug a bit.

 

"Did they say anything about the wound?" Mac asked softly.

 

"Not really, we'll have to wait a while until she wakes up again to ask her herself where she got it from." The blond agent nodded.

 

When they put the stretcher in the back of the car Riley let go of Jack, expecting him to accompany them.

"I think Mac should go..." Jack said softly however. "Matty surely can use my help with our prisoners and Angel will need someone who is calm and comforting by the time she wakes up."

"That is exactly why you should be with her when she wakes up, Jack, she needs you!" Riley said imploringly, trying to hold the man back when he turned to leave.

"No, bro, Riley's right, it should be you in that ambulance and by her side when she wakes up." Bozer interrupted them. "Look it's not my place really and I know you kind of had other ideas here but this woman needs you. Not Riley or me. Not Mac. YOU! Besides, you promised her."

 

Mac was confused for all of five seconds when everything he had seen and heard in the last four weeks finally fell into place and made sense to him.

 

"Would you two give us a minute?" He asked his team members. "See if you can help Matty with anything." They left with a last look at Mac and Jack. "Jack, what's going on?"

 

"Nothing, I just think you should go with her in the ambulance and leave assisting with clean up to me, I'm better suited for that anyway." Jack said defensively.

 

"That's not all there is, isn't it? Look I might have been a bit blind as to what you were doing the past few weeks but I finally got it now and you couldn't be more wrong. This is about Nikki, right?"

 

The look on Jack's face would have been hilarious if the situation was different. "I... Mac, I...." he started but didn't know how to continue.

 

"You were meaning well, you thought Angel might be able to replace Nikki, help me get over her. I appreciate the thought but this is wrong on so many levels. Firstly, replacing Nikki probably won't ever be possible in a sense, we had a pretty good time for a while and while she did betray us, I don't think everything has been a lie. Secondly, despite what I just said, the truth is, I *am* over Nikki and I wish I could somehow prove this to you in a way other than getting a new girlfriend or something. Thirdly I like Angel, I do! The same way I like Riley, like a sister I never had. And lastly, and that's the most important part here, my friend, it's not me she wants. Jack, you must have realised this! You are trained to pick up on the smallest details." Mac counted down on his fingers. And man this so wasn't the right time for a reveal like this but it's what they got now because the clear confusion shining in Jack's eyes now suggested that he really had no clue what Mac was talking about.

 

"Jack, you are the weirdest mix between a big brother and a father figure for me and I love you, you know that even if I don't say it often. It's what you do, you fill this position for me because it's what I need, you do the same thing for Riley and I think even Bozer starts to view you more like an uncle or something. That's what we meant when we said you found another stray. You might think that you're filling the big brother/ father role for Angel as well but the truth is, you are so much more to her than that. You are what she's been looking for all her life and in extension you gave her even more than that. You gave her a 'home'..." he gently tapped his finger against Jack's chest just above his heart. "... and a family!" at that he made a circle motion around them with his finger, meaning Jack, Mac, Riley and Bozer with that statement. "It's obvious when she looks at you, when she talks to and about you and also in the way her eyes always find you first when she enters the room. She loves you, Jack and that's the reason it has to be you in this ambulance and by her side helping her through this."

 

The older man looked stunned if not slightly shell-shocked at this because surely Mac must have this the wrong way around. Mac saw the slightly impatient way the paramedics waited for them to make a decision about who would come along. That gave him a little reassurance about the state Angel was in, if she had been in critical condition they hadn't waited that long. "Go, let me handle clean up and Matty and then we'll be over at the hospital.  She needs you, Jack. And in case you still don't believe me, take a look at her lock screen!" He handed Jack Angel's mobile phone and pushed him in the direction of the waiting ambulance.

 

~*~

 

Clean up took more time than expected even with the help of the LAPD and by the time Mac, Riley and Bozer arrived at the hospital it was already early morning, just before sunrise.

 

After a short discussion with the night nurse they had acquired the room number where their friends were.

Jack was out of his chair with his hand on his gun the moment the door handle moved, relaxed again however when his tired brain worked through the information 'friends not enemy'. Nobody commented on that.

 

Silently they gathered around the bed of their newest friend and addition to the family.

"How is she?" Mac asked gently.

"Mostly alright?" Jack replied, rubbing his eyes slightly. "Doc says they have cleaned all the scratches and bandaged them, checked her over throroughly, nothing broken, no internal injuries. The wound on her side got stitched up and although they said that they didn't think that she lost a dangerous amount of blood, they still gave her a transfusion to help her heal. Doc also says it's a little weird, usually you can distinguish between cuts and bullet wounds but he was really unsure what caused this one."

"Well whatever it was, they fixed it now, in the end that's all that counts..." Mac said. "Unless there is something else you're not telling us?"

 

The older agent looked up and for once really looked his age.

"Trouble is... she hasn't woken up yet, not even for a minute... apparently the bruise on her head developed some swelling on the inside as well and that's putting a bit of pressure on her brain or something. It's not to the extend that it's necessarily dangerous they say and it should go back over the next few days but we won't know for sure until she wakes up." he finished his report, looking a little helplessly at his friends whose faces mirrored his own worry.

 

"Well damn... so we wait... again..." Bozer sighed, an edge of frustration in his voice.

"That we do..." agreed Riley, planting herself on one end of the small couch opposite of Angel's bed. Bozer followed her, while Mac and Jack took the chairs, settling in for the forseeable future.

 

For a little while it was silent in the room, all of them caught up in their own thoughts while they listened to the soft breathing of the woman in bed and the beeping of her heart monitor.

 

It didn't take all that long for Riley to fall asleep, closely followed by Bozer.

"How did clean up go?" Jack chose that moment to ask his friend.

"As well as could be expected I guess. They did a good job decimating their own numbers before we arrived, they patched up those who were still alive and put the unharmed ones into custody. I suppose Matty starts interrogating them as we speak." he explained.

"Did she say anything? About me leaving I mean."

"Don't worry about it, Jack, it was the right call. Matty agrees with that. We might have arrived at the location too late if it hadn't been for Angel's call. It was bad timing that she made another late night run to the junkyard tonight but it might have saved our whole operation. We told her that we are friends and although Matty was just a tiny bit unhappy that she had to learn about Angel this way she perfectly understood why you left with the ambulance."

 

Jack sighed.

"That will be a fun conversation when I talk to Matty next time. Speaking of... did she say something about her?" Jack's eyes drifted back to the sleeping figure in the bed.

Mac smiled softly, he knew exactly what Jack was asking.

"Matty will want to talk to Angel when she's fully recovered, she will check her background thoroughly, you know how that goes but seeing that after tonight she won't believe the 'think tank' story any longer, we will tell her the truth. And Jack... I strongly advise you to tell her the whole truth!" The blond man looked his friend intently in the eyes as he said that.

 

The older man fell silent for a little while, gathering his thoughts. Mac could almost see the way Jack's brain was working.

 

"Hey Mac... about what you said... before... you really mean it?"

"Every word!" Mac's conviction was also audible in his voice.

Jack chuckled helplessly.

"Man, I probably should start thinking about retirement then..."

Mac sharply turned his head towards his friend, a sudden unease in his belly.

"Where's this coming from?"

"Simple, you said it yourself, I'm trained to pick up on the smallest details, even those invisible to the eye. I should be able to read a situation and the emotional state of other people at any given moment... if I make such glaring mistakes in my personal life, how can I be sure that I won't fuck up on a mission and put you in danger? Worse still... not only did I completely missread this situation, I completely failed at reading myself and that above all is a nightmare." Jack whispered emphatically.

 

"Woah, hold up Jack, slow down with the self-depreciation. This is something entirely different than any mission we ever had and if you could think clearly at the moment, you would see that. As it is you are tired, worried and emotionally in a bad place. You can't compare this situation to our work. I know for a fact that no matter what happens on a mission I can count on you and your skills and instincts 150%. This is different because you wanted to 'help' me or something. You had a goal and that's how you interpreted the signs, completely disregarding your own feelings."

 

Jack still was a little unsure about how to feel about his spectacular misinterpretation of what was happening around him but he understood what Mac was saying.

Idly he played with Angel's phone, absentmindedly turning on her lock screen for the nth time that night. He had understood what Mac had tried to tell him the first time he looked at it. It was a picture of himself, he was completely unaware as to when Angel had taken it. He looked happy and relaxed in it, laughing freely at something... it's the kind of picture that pretty much spoke of the love of the person taking it.

 

"It's not that I've been disregarding them per say, I haven't taken the time to really look at them. When we met and started talking, she reminded me so much of you that I immediately started to think how well you would fit together. You would understand each other. And I'm much too old for her anyway, so I filed away the affection I felt for her right next to how I feel about Riley and that was that, everything made sense. I guess I've been alone too long that I didn't realise that what I'm feeling for her isn't really the same thing that I'm feeling for Riley. Not just anyway. But that doesn't change the fact that I actually could be her dad... she deserves to have someone by her side who has the same energy as her, someone who can be with her all the time who can provide her with a home. Not someone twice her age who literally could come back in a box the next day if something goes wrong." he said quietly, uncharacteristically open and honest with his feelings.

 

MacGyver would be lying if he said he didn't feel just a little bit unsettled and out of his depth by this conversation. He took a moment to think through what he'd heard just now and to think about how to address it properly.

 

"Okay, first off, I think if your last argument really was an issue then you shouldn't have considered me a good option for Angel either. In our line of work that's a possibilty for everyone and as you have put it once or twice. 'You go boom, I go boom', we are in this together, so far we managed just fine and I don't know about you but I will do my best to keep it that way. I can't disagree with you about being alone too long because it's true. For so long you've been focused on your job, protecting me and being there for Riley that you forgot about yourself and that my friend always made me sad a bit because you deserve more. True, having relationships with our job is difficult but this could be your chance. Angel knows now or will know what we're doing, let her make the decision, it's her life after all. And the same goes for your last issue. Jack, you might be the closest thing to a dad that Riley and I have but you are not 'that' old. And Angel has experienced so much in her life, a lot more than the average woman her age, she needs someone by her side who can match with her in this aspect. You can do that. As I told you before it's your experience paired with your strong sense of family that could provide her with the 'home' she never had." Mac took a deep breath, hoping he got his point across but still wanting to give Jack just that bit more after he had helped him so many times over the years.

 

"The best advice I can give you really is: be honest! Be honest with yourself and your feelings and be honest with her about all these concerns and our job and see where it goes. Cards on the table and then decide together. If you both agree it might be better to stay friends, it's your call, but do it together. Although I'd say, go for it, no day like today!" And Mac had a feeling that Angel would share this sentiment exactly.

 

Jack sighed silently.

"Thanks Mac, I mean it. I love you, bro!" he whispered softly, patting Mac's thigh next to him but not looking at him.

"Yeah, me too, Jack!" the blond agent replied with a soft smile.

 

"You thirsty? I could totally go for a cup of crap cafeteria coffee now..." Jack said after a short pause, stiffly getting to his feet.

MacGyver knew that above all else Jack needed a moment to himself now to digest this heart-to-heart but left it uncommented.

"You know what? That sounds like a pretty good idea. Bring me one too, I'll stay and keep an eye on things!"

 

~*~

 

Angel slept for more than another 24 hours but all four of her friends stayed by her side, interrupted only by quick bathroom breaks to wash up and change into fresh clothes that Matty had had delivered to them along with a message that if her top team already decided to laze around and skip on doing any work to at least keep her updated about the patient's condition. Which Mac gladly did of course.

 

It took the smallest change in Angel's breathing rhythm to send Mac and Jack to their feet and her side, alerting Riley and Bozer in the process as well.

The woman groaned softly, sluggishly blinking her eyes open and closing them against the light again quickly.

"And I thought being hunted by guys with guns would be a once in a lifetime experience... God my head is killing me..." was the first thing she whispered, rough and broken due to a dry throat.

 

Mac, the only person who knew the story behind that statement, started laughing, while Riley and Bozer exchanged confused looks and Jack looked plain shocked. He pushed the emotion aside though to gently support Angel's head while he held a cup of water to her lips, letting her take careful sips.

 

It took a moment longer for her to keep her eyes open long enough to actually focus on her surroundings and her friends. True to form her eyes unerringly found Jack's gaze first before looking at the other three one by one.

"Hey..." she whispered with a slightly dopey smile. "You're all here!"

Jack carefully pushed her hair out of her face, smiling at her.

"Of course we are, darling..." he replied. "That's what friends are for."

 

Bozer, generally the more emotional one in their team, smiled with somewhat glistening eyes. "I'll raise you one, Jack, that's what family is for!"

 

Angel looked a little stunned at that, didn't know what to say to that other than. "Thanks..."

 

"How are you feeling?" Mac asked the obvious question while Riley pressed the call button to alert the hospital staff that Angel was awake.

 

"A little bit as if I got in the middle of a fight between Hulk and Thor, I think..." she said, made the whole group laugh with that description.

 

She couldn't say more though because the door opened at that moment and a doctor and two nurses swarmed into the room. Reluctantly the four left to let them check Angel over in peace, reassured enough that Angel was awake and obviously doing well all things considered given that she was joking already.

 

"I'll call Matty and let her know that Angel woke up..." Jack surprisingly said, stepping away for a bit.

"Okay, I didn't expect that now but what I really want to know, what was that about being chased by guys with guns?" Riley asked and fixed Mac with a curious look.

"Yeah, I'd like to know the same thing and don't even try to deny that you know, bro because we know better!" Bozer joined in.

"True..." Mac grinned. "Won't tell you anyway. She told me that story but you'll have to ask her if you want to know. Not my story to tell."

"Aw, come one, Mac!" they both grumbled.

 

~*~

 

With Angel awake again, business went mostly back to usual although the team stayed grounded at HQ a bit longer to be able to look after their friend. The woman herself seemed to do better and better with every passing day although that night at the junkyard still was a bit hazy. She remembered calling Jack and hitting her head in shock and surprise when the shooting had started. Fighting the dizziness she had just one thought and that was to get away from the bullets because even in her state she had realised that she was in danger of being caught in the crossfire. She had crawled between the cars and crevices inside and out of gutted vehicles until she hit a dead end in the trunk of the car they had found her in. In the process she must have cut herself on some scrap metal but couldn't say more because she didn't even remember feeling any pain in that moment. Apparently she hit her head at the same place again when Mac's explosion had happened and lost consciousness for a couple of minutes. She had faintly heard her name when she came to and tried to knock against the trunk lid. Most of what happened after that was lost to her. The only thing she remembered feeling relief flooding her mind when she had heard Jack's voice. Some part of her knew she was safe now and could give in to the darkness pulling on her mind.

 

Jack spent the most time at the hospital talking to Angel or just watching over her while she slept. Noone in the group asked him directly if they had talked about their relationship yet although they all were admittedly curious.

 

Mac joined the older agent when he filled her in on what they did for a living. That talk had gone over rather well on the one hand and spectacularly bad on the other, mainly because although she got *why* they lied to her, all of them, she still was hurt *that* they had lied to her. She had kicked them both out after that particular talk which hurt Jack but he ultimately understood with Mac's help. (Later the two agents would learn that Bozer took significant part in soothing Angel's initial anger and hurt about this. Having been in the very same spot not too long before. he had been able to understand her feelings perfectly well but was also able to help her make peace with the situation like he had done. It had been a very emotional bonding moment for the two of them.)

 

During the dinner and beer run afterwards, Jack also confessed to Mac that they actually did talk for a minute about their pending relationship but only to agree on the necessity to talk about this in depth and that the hospital wasn't the proper location for such an important conversation. And Jack had also cautioned that Angel had to learn about the truth of their job first and have her talk to Matty when she was fully recovered. Which made complete sense to Mac because only then did Angel have the whole gruesome truth of the situation and could decide if it was worth a try. And yet he was pretty sure that all the circumstances still wouldn't change what she felt for Jack.

 

~*~

 

In the very end, Mac proved to be correct with that feeling. He knew it the moment he saw Jack the day after *the* talk. His friend was practically glowing and it was one of the best things Mac had seen until then because in all the years he'd known Jack, he had never seemed *that* happy.

Without a word he pulled Jack into a tight hug, clapping him on the back with a wide smile.

 

"Thanks, bro!" the older one whispered.

"You are very welcome!" he replied.

 

It would be slow going between the couple, finding their way around each other step by step and it probably wouldn't always be easy, especially with the work Jack did but they would make it work and the whole family made sure of that as well.

 

~*~

 

About two weeks later, all of them were assembled in the war room, getting debriefed on the mission they just returned from (one of the rare ones where not one of them got hurt if you didn't count the bruise on Bozer's head where he bumped it on the flight home) when all four of their mobile phones rang with an incoming text from Angel asking them to come by her place when they were done because she had a surprise for them. And to bring along their boss as well if she could make it. Matty had been surprised by that to say the least. Her talk with the woman had been a long and exhausting one. Matty had to dig into a couple of very sore spots of Angel's personal history and she hadn't expected that Angel would want to see her again so soon.

 

Their meeting ended up cut short and they all piled into their cars to get to Angel's place not even bothering to try her door bell but rounding the corner of the house directly when they arrived.

 

"Ah you're home already!" the artist exclaimed, grinning brightly and unwittingly sending warmth to Jack's heart at the mention of home. He greeted her with a quick peck on her forehead.

"Of course, when you call, we are on our way!" he grinned, a fond look in his eyes.

 

"Not to interrupt the welcome or anything but what is this surprise you mentioned?" Riley asked half amused and half annoyed at the lovey-dovey-ness of her friends', as understated as it may be.

 

"Yeah, I admit, I'm curious as well..." Mac grinned, accompanied by Bozer, Jack and even Matty.

 

"Well then, follow me, it's further in the back." Angel went ahead of them, a happy spring to her step. She stopped in front of whatever it was. It was huge and covered with some tarp. "Ready?" She asked, didn't wait long enough for an answer though before pulling the cover off, revealing one of her art pieces. One none of them had seen until now.

 

They fell into awed silence until Mac found his speech again.

"Is that a..." he started but got interrupted.

"...phoenix. Yes, it is. And I would like to present it to the Phoenix Foundation as thanks for saving my life and working so hard to make the world a safer place. That is... if that's alright with you, Matty." Angel said, looking at the director.

"Well thank you, we would be honored!" the small woman replied, eyes fixed on the installation that would absolutely become the new centre piece at the Foundation's entry way.

 

"'The Phoenix' by Jennifer Lee?" Riley read the small inscription at the bottom of the statue. All eyes went to Angel.

 

"Yes, that's the other surpise. During our talk, well more like after I had time to think it all through, Matty convinced me that now would be a good time to embrace my true identity once again, to start over. With friends and family by my side. " she smiled at them all. "And a home!" The last words she directed to Jack. "Because that's what the phoenix stands for. A new beginning." she added with a smile.

 

"Wow..." was Riley's first reaction

"Congratulations! That is amazing news!" Mac grinned approvingly. "And a brave step!"

"Well damn, girl!" Bozer exclaimed after a dazed moment. "Okay, that calls for another celebration, burgers on the house! And hey, let me be the first to say it out loud. Officially, welcome to the family, Jen!" he pulled the woman into a tight hug that very quickly turned into a goup thing.

 

Some time later, Jack pulled Angel -Jennifer, he reminded himself in his head, that would take some getting used to- into a gentle back hug, eyes on the phoenix statue in front of them, still stunned by everything that just happened.

"When did you make this?" the older agent whispered.

"I started the morning after we first met. You gave me your card from the Phoenix Foundation and... I don't know, something clicked... I told you, you can't ignore the inspiration when it strikes." she teased.

"You are amazing, really!" Jack grinned, shaking his head a little bit, pressing a gentle kiss on the top of her head.


End file.
